How do you format a new SDHC Memory card?
Just got a new Camera (Canon S5 IS)….and a 4Gig Sandisc Extreme “3″ card and reader. I was told that “formatting” was critical after each use of the card? I had an older camera with a Compact Flash card..and I never did it then? What is this all about….and HOW and WHEN do I do it?

Software with the Sandisc was just a “recovering” thing. NOTHING about “formatting”. HELP!
—Gray Rock

well it’s not critical in my opinion. Once you’ve loaded your card pretty good, and you’re sure you’ve backed them up and put them on a disk, then you can format the card. 4 gb is a huge card, and you’ll hardly fill it up unless you take tons and tons of images…I would probably format it once it gets to say, 50% capacity. Do not worry about it.

Some things you should never do is use the card in those picture Kiosks,

always “remove safely” from your computer to avoid corrupting it

and do not use the delete function on your camera a lot. A few times is ok, but don’t use the delete function more than 20 times in a row, for example.
—epic_lay…

DO NOT format the camera using your computer always use the camera’s formatting function.
The Scandisk software cannot provide formatting features for your camera anyway as the SDHC cards can be used in a lot of different cameras which have different requirements.
Formatting will delete all data on the card and then will re-install the r equired folders on the card. So before formatting make sure you have your pics uploaded to your computer (and made a backup).
—Martin S

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